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$7B Madoff Settlement a ‘Game Changer’

The widow of a Florida philanthropist who had been the single-largest beneficiary of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme has agreed to return $7.2 billion in bogus profits to the victims of the fraud. (Dec. 18)

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FDA Rejects New Blood Thinner — for Now

AstraZeneca’s new blood thinner Brilinta worked better than Plavix in a head-to-head clinical trial — but not in U.S. and Canadian patients. The FDA won’t approve the drug without a new analysis of the study.

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Increase in SIDS on New Year’s Day

New Year’s Day brings a dramatic spike in cases of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and researchers say New Year’s Eve drinking by caregivers may be to blame.

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Hyundai shows off Equus iPad owners manual, available for test drives in the App Store (video)

Yeah, we know, you’re still having a hard time thinking of Hyundai as a luxury car brand. Get with the times, man. The Equus (“echoos”) is legitimately high-end, and not just because each and every one comes with a 16GB WiFi iPad pre-loaded with the car’s owners manual. Naturally this isn’t just a boring stack of info that you’ll only pull out to look up tire pressures and engine oil capacity — oh no. This is a properly interactive experience showing you how the directional headlights work, providing videos of various interior configurations (including the reclining “First Class” rear seats with legrests), and even offering what looks to be something of a driving game. Sure, it’s no Real Racing , but it is free, and you can check it out in the App Store now. Or, you can just live vicariously through the video below. Continue reading Hyundai shows off Equus iPad owners manual, available for test drives in the App Store (video) Hyundai shows off Equus iPad owners manual, available for test drives in the App Store (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 18:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

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Herbs, Vitamins, and Supplements Used to Enhance Mood

Some supplements reportedly boost mood — but what does the evidence show for mood enhancers?

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Emily Deschanel Honored as Animal Advocate, Ryan and Scarlett Share "The Whale," and More

Photo: David Shankbone /Creative Commons Actress Emily Deschanel is the recipient of the Humane Society of the United States’ most recent Humane Advocate Award — which highlights her animal rights work, from her vegan diet to her campaigns against dogfighting. … Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Obama: Tax-Cut Deal Helps the Middle Class

In Internet-ese, one possible response to a couple of President Obama’s more intriguing justifications for passing the contentious tax-cut bill on Friday might be O RLY? This is because the president declared later that same day that the new measure will “protect the middle class, grow our economy … and create jobs for the American people.” Meanwhile, Reuters characterized the bill as “a grab bag of goodies for investors, the affluent and workers, but the richer you are the more you get.”

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Boehner: Stopping Tax Hike Was First Goal

Soon-to-be House Speaker John Boehner said Friday that he voted for the recently approved tax compromise because his first goal was to make sure taxes did not go up on January 1st. (Dec. 17)

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Open source DARwIn-OP bot can be yours for just $12,000

A few weeks back we caught our first glimpse of the open source, modular DARwIn-OP developed at Virginia Tech’s Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory, also known as RoMeLa. Well, there’s more information available now about the upcoming little bot, so here’s what we know. Korean company Robotis is making available the bot’s open source software, schematics, CAD and fabrication manuals, in addition to selling the fully assembled robots. DARwin-OP was unveiled recently at the IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, and is built on a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530-based FitPC2i which boasts a 4GB SSD, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, 802.11n WiFi. Shipments of the 17.9-inch tall humanoid robots are being sent to universities first at a price of $9,600, and will run $12,000 at full retail. Hit up the source links for a far more detailed look at DARwin-OP’s specs, and there’s a video after the break. Continue reading Open source DARwIn-OP bot can be yours for just $12,000 Open source DARwIn-OP bot can be yours for just $12,000 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 18:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

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Newt Gingrich Touts Incoming House Leadership as Job Creators

Click here to view this media When asked by Sean Hannity how Republicans are going to counter attacks by Democrats that their leadership doesn’t care that they are supporting policies that characterize “Republicans as wanting to kick granny out on the street and have grandma and grandpa eat dog food”, Newt Gingrich offered this defense of their incoming committee chairs. HANNITY: Let’s look ahead to the next Congress. When they start to take power in the House on Jan. 5th and we have more Republican Senators, first order of business I think is going to be to repeal health care, cut spending. You lived through this. How long is it going to be before Democrats start characterizing Republicans as wanting to kick granny out on the street and have grandma and grandpa eat dog food. GINGRICH: Well I’m sure some left wingers will start doing it on Christmas day. But I think the key is for Speaker Boehner and the Republican team in the House to calmly and methodically focus on job creation, then to focus on a series of hearings on Obama-care and then repeal it and begin to replace it with a much better plan, and then to cut spending and to control spending. My understanding is, Congressman Paul Ryan, the new Chairman of The Budget Committee is ready to move on the spending side. I think Dave Camp is very prepared to move on the jobs side on Ways and Means and I think that Fred Upton is very prepared to move on Obama-care, so I think you’re going to see a Republican team in the House from day one prepared to move towards a healthier, more prosperous, more employed America. And I think that’s good news for the country. I’m just curious how Paul Ryan, who wants to privatize Social Security among a ton of other terrible ideas with his Roadmap for America’s Future , Dave Camp who supports outsourcing of American jobs and Fred Upton who wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act — which despite all its faults is better than what any Republicans are offering as an alternative are in any way shape or form — concerned about job creation in the United States or keeping our social safety nets intact so that we don’t literally throw grandma and grandpa out on the streets and tell them to go eat dog food. Republicans don’t care about job creation and their policies don’t create jobs. The only thing they care about are their rich campaign donors, and Newt is just doing a preemptive strike here with what’s sure to be the backlash as that becomes more painfully obvious when they have to take some responsibility for governing with their control of the House. They decided to ignore Darrell Issa and the endless hearings we’re going to get out of his Oversight Committee and whether we’re going to get to look forward to another set of impeachment hearings over bulls**t as we had when Bill Clinton was in office during which Newt Gingrich was blasting him for the same sexual improprieties he was participating in himself. Hannity finished up the segment with trying to get Gingrich to say if he was running for president in 2012 by asking him where we’d see him campaigning. I think other than Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich is about the worst person the GOP could possibly nominate as their candidate, so hey… go for it, Newt.

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